History of discrimination and persecution due to ‘social inequality’ repeats itself.
The European Industrial Revolution kick-started technological progress, mass production, and industry and commerce flourishing. People who were smart and capable were able to make more money and come into great wealth. Although the standard of living of absolutely everyone (even the poorest) was raised across the board, the new technologies allowed the more able and clever to be even more productive and to earn more than the others were able to earn. Social inequality was not only increased but made visible (I should point out that social inequality is perfectly natural because it reflects the genetic diversity of people; failure to respect it always leads to a socialist totalitarian regime).
Social inequality was evident between the more productive, and therefore wealthier, Jewish community and the majority non-Jewish population.
This led to strongly anti-Semitic laws in the 1930s and tragically resulted in the brutal Holocaust. The envy and hatred of poor Slovaks towards wealthy Jews led to mass support for anti-Semitic laws in Slovakia and the deportation of Jews to concentration camps. The Slovak state was the only one to pay 500 Reichsmarks for the deportation of each Jew.
Unfortunately, the fight against the clever and the rich in Slovakia is not over and continues today. The wealthiest people in Slovakia have already left or are in the process of leaving.
Of course, a “social government” that reflects the views of the masses is unable to perceive that just as the Jews actively contributed to the significant economic boom of the first Czechoslovak Republic (along with the Sudeten Germans, who were also deported after the war, by the way), so the current rich people are very beneficial to Slovakia – they brought capital, business, and investment (and all of it is gradually disappearing from Slovakia).
However, the industrial revolution continues, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies. These technologies allow smart and capable people to accelerate their productivity by orders of magnitude. And therefore increase their wealth.
A new technocratic/crypto aristocracy is already emerging all over the world, which has gained significant wealth thanks to technology (specially AI and Bitcoin).
Although everyone benefits from new technologies, a hundred-year-old scenario is repeating itself. The social divide between the new technocratic/crypto aristocracy and the majority population (let’s call them “fiat plebs”), who are getting poorer every year thanks to the use of state inflationary money and the inability to embrace the new technologies, is visibly increasing.
And just as anti-Semitic laws were passed to discriminate against a particular rich ethnic group, laws are now being passed all over Europe to discriminate against the new rich people and specifically against the owners of crypts.
It was the Nazis who decided to enforce the Reich Flight Tax against their wealthy Jewish fellow citizens and imposed a tax of up to 25% on all property if they decided to leave Nazi Germany.
The Nazi exit tax inspired European countries. Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and other countries have introduced an exit tax – a bailout for wanting to leave the country as a tax resident.
Italy and Denmark have introduced a 42% capital gains tax on crypto, publicly declaring that they don’t want rich crypto people; instead, they want them out of the country as soon as possible. It is very absurd to think that rich, flexible crypto people will pay these taxes, as they can choose a country where they will not pay them. In Slovakia, the total tax burden on cryptos is 40%, and the Slovak tax office collected 98% less than planned for 2023 (this is not a joke, but a tax reality).
France goes even further – it introduces citizenship-based taxation, i.e., global tax slavery, which you will not be able to get out of even if you move from France to a country where taxes are 50% lower than in France.
The “bull market” that is now underway will only make the fight of European bureaucrats against Bitcoin users harder and worse. It is to be expected that all EU countries will gradually introduce an exit tax. And probably also citizenship-based taxation.
Just as Europe, with its strongly anti-Semitic laws, was hostile to the Jewish community 90 years ago, it is now hostile to the growing technocratic/crypto aristocracy.
And just as European countries deported those hated, innovative, and productive people to concentration camps, now innovative and productive people are being deported to crypto-friendly countries like the US, UAE, and Latin America.
In both cases, the “noble cause” was social justice, which was also used as one of the reasons for the Aryanization of Jewish property.
Just as there have been physical attacks against Jews in the past, there are increasingly frequent physical attacks against crypto owners.
Just as Jews have been yellow-starred and spied on in the past for their anti-Semitic views, crypto-owners (KYC, Travel Rule, MiCA) are also being spied on and prevented from anonymity (anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero have been removed from all European centralized exchanges). For example, owners of ordinary government cash have their anonymity assured.
The European Union is a profoundly hypocritical organization. Outwardly, it pretends to protect the privacy of all citizens (thanks to legislation like GDPR). Still, it fights hard against cryptocurrencies that provide citizens anonymity (like Monero).
And just as Jews fled anti-Semitic Europe for Latin America, now thousands are fleeing Europe’s over-regulated fiscal hell for a free, to more free Paraguay, Uruguay, or Panama.
The European Union’s hostility is not only to cryptocurrencies but also to artificial intelligence, which can accelerate intelligent people’s productivity (and therefore wealth) by orders of magnitude. In the EU, AI is heavily regulated; you can’t even download the open-source LLM model LLama 3.2 there. The bizarre reason is to “protect the privacy of EU citizens,” especially in a situation where, thanks to EU regulations like MiCA (and the resulting ban on anonymous cryptocurrencies), the EU is drastically reducing the privacy of cryptocurrency users.
Just as it was inevitable for Jews to leave a fascist country whole of anti-Semitic laws, it is becoming unavoidable for members of the crypto community to leave countries that impose spying and massive taxation on crypto users.
If not on a physical level by leaving the EU, then at least on a legislative level – de-register as a permanent resident and de-register from all state registers. This is important not only from a tax point of view but also from a security point of view. Not having an official address, not having a place where you are officially present most of the time, is essential not only to avoid state-sponsored extortion but any other kind of physical attack, extortion, or kidnapping, which is increasing all over the world (and it’s only going to get worse as the value of Bitcoin increases).
Bitcoin’s growth will widen the social divide between the fiat plebs and the technocratic/crypto aristocracy. Attacks against it will increase from both states and individuals.
It’s good to be prepared for that and have a plan B, just like the Jews who managed to escape from anti-Semitic European countries and survived, thanks to it.